tion's national-security adviser, told me that Clinton wrote to King Fahd and met with Fahd's half brother, Crown Prince Abdullah, in New York, personally urg- ing them to coöperate. The Secretaries of Defense and State, Berger added, made personal appeals to the Saudi hierarch Over the next few months, F reeh trav- elled twice more to Saudi Arabia. "Louis would go over there and try to negotiate for them to show us the evidence," Es- posito said. ' d then, at the highest levels, they would agree to it. And then. . . it wouldn't happen, so Louis would have to make another trip." But Freeh also heard from his Saudi coun- terparts that there had been little followup to the Administration's statements; as a result, a mixed signal was being sent about the seriousness of United States resolve. Freeh came to believe that the Clinton Administration feared jeopar- dizing its strategic relationships in the Middle East by pressing too hard; in fact, by the end of the Clinton era, Freeh had become so mistrustful of Clinton that, although he believed that he had developed enough evidence to seek in- dictments against the masterminds be-- hind the attack, not just the front-line suspects, he decided to wait for a new Administration. The matter is unusu- ally sensitive, because any indictments are likely to name Iranian government officials, especially those with ties to Iranian intelligence, commonly believed to be the source of terrorist activities. According to those who have worked closely with Freeh, the Khobar barracks bombing became a case into which he poured not only enormous investigative resources but also his soul. As I delved into his life, I kept hearing whispers about what one person called his almost "theological" pursuit of the bombing, and up until the announcement of his retirement it remained in many ways his most important case-and the one most hidden from public view. "With Khobar, you can see all of Louis's values right on his sleeve," George Tenet, the director of the C.I.A., told me. The se- crecy surrounding the case has been such that Dale Watson, the EB.I.'s chief of counter-terrorism, once said, "It's a kill- Ing offense around here to talk about it." Freeh recently briefed President George W. Bush on the attack, and gave the Administration a list of people 70 THE NEW YORKER, MAY 14, 2001 whom he thinks the United States should indict. The Administration's handling of the case may be one of its most important foreign-policy tests. "The only unfinished piece of business that I have is the one you're writing about," Freeh told me late last week. II T he EB.I. director's office is on the seventh floor of the J. Edgar Hoover Building, on Pennsylvania Avenue, a few blocks from the White House. Bright- colored drawings and paintings made by Freeh's six children line almost the full length of one wall, and they are framed by photographs of some of Freeh's he- roes: Giovanni Falcone, the Sicilian mag- istrate who was the Mafia's most fearless foe, and who was assassinated in 1992; U.S. District Court Judge Frank M. Johnson, Jr., whose mother's house was firebombed after Johnson ordered the desegregation of Southern public schools, and who swore Freeh in; and Elie Wie- sel, the Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner. (Freeh once trav- elled to Auschwitz and Birkenau, against the wishes of the United States Ambas- sador to Poland, and delivered a speech about how the abuse of police power contributed to the Holocaust; last year he began requiring new agents to study the subject at the Holocaust Museum.) By the time he leaves, at the end of June, F reeh, who is fifty-one, will have completed nearly eight years on the job. He has overseen the largest expansion of the EB.I. in the agency's histo and as- sured its central role in national-security issues, very possibly becoming more powerful thanJ. Edgar Hoover. But there have been major embarrassments, most recently the discovery that Robert Hans- sen, a longtime, trusted EB.I. agent, had spied for the Soviet Union and Russia for fifteen years. The EB.I.'s judgment was questioned after the Bureau fingered an Atlanta security guard, Richard Jewell, in connection with a bombing during the 1996 Summer Olympics; serious prob- lems were uncovered in its once famed laboratory; and Freeh was active in press- ing for the indictment of Wen Ho Le.e, the Chinese scientist accused of mishan- dling nuclear secrets, in an investigation that a federal judge later said "embar- rassed our entire nation." Freeh also had a number of public squabbles with the Clinton Administration, most notably over his pursuit of an independent coun- sel to investigate possible fund -raising abuses in the 1996 Presidential election. These conflicts demonstrated tenacity on Freeh's part but also a rigidity that trou- bled his critics, who regarded him as self- righteous and sanctimonious, unable to grasp the nuances of governing. Freeh has said that his battles with the Admin- istration established a critical indepen- dence, but he was always aware of his power. "They are terrified of me," he once confided to an associate. Over the course of a year, I talked with Freeh eight times-in his office, on the phone, in transit to New York, and dur- ing a trip to Italy; where he attended a memorial service for his friend Giovanni Falcone. I also spoke with his critics in the Administration and with his friends, including Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who knew Freeh from his New York City days as a fabled EB.I. agent, federal prosecu- tor, and federal judge. "I would describe Louis very quickly as the straightest guy I know;" Giuliani said. Giuliani, an opera butt: said Freeh was a cross between Mario Cavaradossi, the painter and po- litical idealist in "Tosca," and the warrior Radamès in ' da." Giuliani went on, "Louis is a very sensitive guy; very, very decent. Very nice man. Very gentle. But about what he does he can be very deter- mined and passionate." Freeh was undoubtedly at his most determined in the Khobar barracks in- vestigation. And in pursuit of the bomb- ing case he became a skilled politician, enlisting allies in Washington and else- where Freeh believes that personal rela- tionships are a key to good investigative work, and says, "The statutory authori- ties and the resources and all the other factors are significant, but my experience is that none of them are as important as those relationships." When Freeh began to believe that the Clinton Administra- tion wasn't fully committed to investi-